London police warn of resurgence of counterfeit products on eBay

London police have reportedly issued a warning to consumers about a counterfeit Ergobaby baby carrier being sold on eBay, saying the Metropolitan Police's Intellectual Property Crime Unit has contacted a number of sellers who have purchased the counterfeit product.

It is reported that on eBay, the name of these products is Ergobaby Omni 360 baby carriers. A detective inspector said that if consumers buy this product online but not through the company's official website, they are likely to buy fakes: "Counterfeit items such as this can cause harm to you and your child. It is important that you stop using it immediately. If you think you have bought a counterfeit product, please call the police immediately and hand it over to the City of London Police."

An Ergobaby spokesperson said: “We are grateful for the assistance of the City of London Police in stopping the sale of counterfeit Ergobaby carriers. Counterfeit products can be dangerous and could cause injury and because they are not verified and tested we cannot be sure they adhere to our quality and service standards.”

eBay has been plagued by counterfeit goods since its inception. After all, many consumers regard eBay as a gathering place for discounted products, and where cheap goods gather, there will naturally be counterfeit and shoddy products mixed in, causing great trouble to consumers, the platform and even law-abiding sellers.

In 2014, the US "Counterfeit Report" organization released a report claiming that eBay did not strictly regulate sellers selling counterfeit goods on the platform. Although eBay took some measures, the report said that eBay still did not do well enough and even deleted negative information about counterfeit goods and sellers.

Since then, eBay has continued to introduce relevant regulatory and punitive measures. In 2018, it also launched the patent description function (patent describes). When eBay sellers try to list products of a specific brand, the patent description system will match the product data posted by the seller with the genuine data in the eBay database to determine the authenticity of the product.

According to the patent description, if the pictures provided by the seller are consistent with those in the eBay database, eBay will greatly improve the visibility of the listing. Otherwise, the listing of counterfeit and shoddy products may directly lose visibility.

With a large amount of capital and sellers pouring into the e-commerce industry, competition among e-commerce companies is bound to become increasingly fierce. Whether it is eBay, Amazon or other e-commerce platforms, they are all trying their best to improve their competitiveness and reputation. The crackdown on counterfeit and shoddy products is bound to intensify. Since 2020, eBay has launched a series of genuine certification services for the collectibles market. Sellers should not be lucky. Once they are found selling counterfeit and shoddy products, their listings will be removed at best, and their accounts will be frozen at worst. That would be a loss.

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